By Megan Bianco
It’s no secret how often the movie studios, particularly Walt Disney Pictures, have been trying to chase the success of “The Wizard of Oz” since its release in 1939. It’s also no secret that the reason MGM’s fantasy-musical even exists is because of Disney’s own groundbreaking “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” two years earlier.
But for all her loveliness and iconic status, Snow White’s personality lacks the substance and impact that Dorothy Gale of Kansas appears to possess in pop culture. And it’s all thanks to the No. 1 hit theme song by Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg, and a performance by one very talented 16-year-old girl.
At the time of the production, Judy Garland was an unusual choice for the Oz lead, as she was about five years older than the Dorothy that author L. Frank Baum originally wrote about in his novel. MGM executives weren’t sure what to do after their first choice, Shirley Temple, was denied access from her home studio of Fox, as was their second choice Deanna Durbin at Universal. When the studio settled on “the little girl with the big voice,” they still didn’t know whether to pass Garland off as a child or her own age.
After many rewrites, and costume and make-up tests, George Cukor—one of the original directors for the film before Victor Fleming finally took over—convinced producer Mervyn LeRoy to just let Garland play Dorothy as an ordinary farm girl. Her attire would include auburn pigtails, a blue and white checkered dress, and black saddle shoes before obtaining the ruby slippers in Munchkinland.
I can’t help but notice that Disney’s own Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” (1951) also wears a blue and white dress with black saddle shoes, and in 1991 so would Belle in “Beauty & the Beast.” Although to be fair, if Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum existed in the same time period, Wonderland’s Carroll would have probably sued or at least subtweeted, Oz’s Baum for plagiarism and similar character design. All three heroines also pen their own ballads of longing outside their humdrum home lives with Dorothy’s “Over the Rainbow,” Alice’s “In a World of My Own” and Belle’s reprise of her self-titled number.
The late musical composer Howard Ashman once noted that in musicals, there’s usually a moment in the first act where the female lead sits on some kind of post, and sings about her dreams and wishes. This is exactly what Dorothy does with “Rainbow,” as does nearly every Disney princess who followed after with their own ballad. Even more fitting is that every musical theatre actress who tried out for Ariel in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” in the late 1980s was requested to audition with “Over the Rainbow” before being given Ariel’s “Part of Your World” in callbacks.
What makes Garland’s portrayal of Dorothy so timeless and fresh is that she plays the heroine as youthful, but not childish. She’s sweet and innocent, but not stupid or juvenile. When it was decided after briefly considering rewriting Dorothy as an all-out teenager to match Garland’s own age, the character’s age eventually became ambiguous. With a minimum of makeup and an unnecessary, specially designed corset that Garland would have to wear in most of her movies the first half of her career, I think most people assume Dorothy’s age in the film is 16. And what’s interesting is that her behavior and reactions are appropriate and fitting as a child or teen because of the tone of the fantasy-musical.
This was an era where even Garland stated that studios didn’t know what to do with actress between 12 and 17 years old, especially if they didn’t skip the awkward phases. But even though they kept her in kid roles, audiences weren’t fooled in any event. While it’s a tad jarring to see 15-year-old Garland referred to as 12 in “Love Finds Andy Hardy” (1938), her presence is much more natural in “The Wizard of Oz.”
This kind of young, but brave and adventurous, naivety has since been seen in countless other fantasy film heroines like Belle, Ariel, Alice, Aurora/Briar Rose, Jasmine, Wendy Darling, and—in live-action—Jennifer Connelly as Sarah in “Labyrinth” (1986). There was even a cheesy, low budget TV movie adaptation of “Babes in Toyland” in 1986 with Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves that I remember watching as a kid, and noticing the filmmakers took a lot of cues from Oz with its characters.
While Dorothy Gale and “The Wizard of Oz” may not have directly influenced all of these movies or characters, it’s no doubt the 1939 picture set the bar high for the fantasy genre in cinema and continues to be the standard for family entertainment.
Megan Bianco is a Southern California-based movie reviewer and content writer with a degree from California State University Northridge.
